


Outside looking in

by Stacy LA Stronach (slashgirl)



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Drama, M/M, None - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 03:50:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/793664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slashgirl/pseuds/Stacy%20LA%20Stronach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim realises what family is.<br/>This story is a sequel to None.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Outside looking in

**Author's Note:**

> Got the idea from an article in Reader's Digest, I used some of the basic ideas there more than anything. Also, this'll probably take me a couple days to get up at my website.

## Outside looking in

by Stacy LA Stronach

Author's webpage: <http://members.tripod.com/~SStronach/index-2.html>

Author's disclaimer: The Sentinel Universe is owned and operated by Pet Fly Prods., UPN, and Paramount. No copyright infringement intended and I'm sure as hell not making any money off it. All other content is my creation.

* * *

Outside looking in  
by Stacy L.A. Stronach  
28 March 1999 

Jim Ellison walked around the corner of the shed, heading for the clothes line platform, having just left the happy noisiness of a cabin full of people. He and and his lover, Blair Sandburg, had invited a few people up here for the long weekend and it gone quite well so far. 

The late spring evening was cool, but the sky was clear, and the stars sparkled like tiny jewels in the sky. Jim had offered to come retrieve the clothes, because he like being outside, especially up here. Besides, it was dark, and he had the best sight of the lot of them. Of course, he couldn't exactly share that fact with everyone. 

The cabin was up in the mountains, a good hour's drive from the city, a refuge from all the mayhem and madness that was Cascade. Up here, there was quiet and open spaces, clean air and no neighbours. His brother, Stephen, had given Blair and him the land as a present, shortly after they'd told Stephen they were together as lovers. Blair and Jim had taken a couple weeks in the summer, and with the help of Stephen and a few of their friends, had built the simple cabin here in the woods. 

Jim climbed up on the platform, quickly and efficiently removing the clothes from the line. The last thing he took off was one of Blair's t-shirts and Jim held it up to his face, inhaling. He could still smell Blair's scent on it, along with the unscented detergent, and most of all, the outdoors smell that permeated all the clothes. Reassuring, normal smells. 

Heading back, he turned the corner by the shed, and Jim paused, staring at the dark house with it's rectangles of yellow light. It wasn't that he needed to readjust his vision, he'd anticipated the change in brightness. It's the fact that here, now, he wass an outsider and looking inside his home seems somehow transformed. 

The plain, unfinished table in the kitchen has taken on deeper, warmer tones. The cabinets, the pots and pans hanging from the ceiling, all the little odds and ends that make up his kitchen somehow seem less utilitarian objects and more like the pieces of the puzzle that make up his home. 

Jim shifted his gaze to the living room, fascinated by his new perspective. The fire was glowing in the fire place, casting a warmth to the room and the people in it. He smiled, seeing Blair and Daryl Banks, sitting on the floor, opposite one another, with the chess game set up between them. Blair lifted a piece and placed it, and Jim could imagine him explaining to Daryl why he had played it. Blair, always the teacher. 

His glance was drawn to the sofa, where Blair's mother, Naomi, sat, along with Daryl's father, Simon. The two were talking quietly, and from the looks directed at the two sitting on the floor, obviously about their children. More than likely swapping cute but embarrassing stories about their boys. 

Looking near the fireplace, Jim saw Stephen, in the arm chair, with his daughter, Sydney, sitting on his lap, his arms wrapped around her, securing her. Sydney held a big book in her lap, to which she'd point, then say something, obviously reading the book to her father. 

For just a moment, he felt like a stranger, staring into a house that wasn't his, watching the simple, everyday interaction of family. Then, the next moment, he wonders what it would be like if he really were a stranger, if he could never again enter that house. What if he couldn't touch Blair's silky curls or hear his wonderful laugh again? What if he could never hug his niece again or go surfing with his little brother? Or experience one of Naomi's visits, or Daryl's teenaged exuberance, or smell one of Simon's cigars, ever again? 

Jim felt his heart and his soul expand as he let his family, for these people surely were his family, in, without condition. He realised that all the trials and tribulations they experienced, that the daily friction which living and working together brought, all the barriers they placed in their relationships and as ragtag a bunch as they might be, it didn't amount to much. That those things were of little significance, because the most important thing, that which overshadowed everything else, was the simple fact they loved each other. It was love which bound them together and which would keep them together, it was love that made them a family. 

Jim smiled as he slowly made his way back to the cabin. Glad that he wasn't a stranger and that this was his family, this was his home. And that he wouldn't change it for the world. 

_the end_


End file.
